Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Journal #6

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What's it like when your game approaches completion? Troika's Sean Craig takes us through the final stages.

By IGN Staff

At first glance, Hommlet seems like many another village. It lies nestled within the Kron Hills, 10 leagues south of the city of Verbobonc, somewhat east of the Lortmil Mountains and just west of the Gnarley Forest. This region is peaceful, fertile countryside suited to such pursuits as farming, herding, woodcutting, hunting and trapping, so it was only natural that a prosperous little settlement should arise, located on a crossroads leading to the Wild Coast. Alas, many sinister characters and vile creatures were drawn there too, establishing a nearby community called Nulb. In this iniquitous place, a chapel was erected, one dedicated to vice, damnation and the worship of various immoral and malevolent deities. Over time, as more loathsome beings came to visit, it grew into the Temple of Elemental Evil, filled with dark priests and their corrupted servants.

This was the setting for the very first module within the pen and paper Greyhawk campaign, which was introduced with the release of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule set in 1985. Now, it's serving as the backdrop for Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil, an RPG in progress at the offices of California-based Troika Games and targeted for release later this year. When the title was announced in January, we were told that it will feature the most faithful implementation to date of the current 3rd Edition D&D rules including numerous feats and skills, hordes of classic enemies and traditional turn-based combat. Thanks to Project Leader and Lead Designer Tim Cain along with other members of the team, we've been able to learn a lot more since. Today, Programmer Sean returns to advance our education.

Going Gold

The process of going gold is arduous. I like to break it down into three phases - Panic, Acceptance and then finally The Waiting.

Phase I - Panic At this point, the game has just entered test, and you have a personal list of things to do a mile long. It is easy to feel overwhelmed at this point. You're trying to fix the horrible bug in your code before anyone else finds it and makes you look stupid. There are some systems that you know need major rewrites before they're ready to ship, and you have to redo them now so that the new code will get adequate testing. But the testers keep sending you bug reports, which you don't read, because anyone looking at the game for three minutes can see a dozen things that need to be changed. Your co-workers are coming into your office three or four times an hour with a problem that they expect you to drop everything to fix. This is a great time for excuses and delaying tactics. Basically, anything you can say that lets you get back to work on the stuff you need to work on instead of the stuff everyone wants you to work on. Some of my favorites:

1) Did you do a full get? This can delay the person for a couple hours easy. 2) Try rebooting. Only good for a couple minutes, but sometimes that's all you need before they get distracted. 3) Works on MY machine. This one pushes the blame off on the person who found the bug - obviously it's because of something they did. 4) That's a [someone not here] question. The old standby slough-off. Preferably, the someone not here has gone on vacation or left the company or died or something; that way, they can't come back and prove incontrovertibly that it is in fact your bug. 5) I haven't checked anything in, so it couldn't possibly be me. This one is great because they don't even know who to go to. 6) It's on my list. Usually, it takes people a couple of months before they realize what this REALLY means. 7) Wow. If that happens again, let me know. 8) That's the way it works now. 9) I fixed all those bugs yesterday. 10) No player is ever going to do that. 11) Any player who does that DESERVES to have the game crash. 12) We're beyond that point now. 13) If it's still in there tomorrow, I'll look at it. 14) You are lying.

Phase II - Acceptance At this point, you've finally got the list of bugs down to a manageable size. Your co-workers bug you three or four times a day instead of three or four times an hour. You're looking at what the testers give you because the bugs now are a little harder to reproduce. Maybe under some specific circumstances, a character's turn gets skipped. Maybe some monsters aren't behaving the way you'd expect them to. The hours are still insane. Some days, it feels like you're only treading water; you fix exactly as many bugs as are found that day. Some days, you loose ground and your bug count grows. Seems like the first three or four hours of every day are spent fixing the bugs you created the day before. Still, you can tell the bug list is finite; the game is visibly getting better every day. The end is a ways off, but it doesn't feel like you'll never get there anymore. It's only a matter of time.